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- Andræ, Marika
(author)
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Rött eller grönt? : flicka blir kvinna och pojke blir man i B. Wahlströms ungdomsböcker 1914-1944
- 2001
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- One of the most widely diffused series of girls' and boys' popular stories in Sweden during the 20th century is "B. Wahlströms ungdomsböcker". Its most distinctive feature is the binding with red or green spines, red on books intended for girls and green for boys. The series is a token of the constitution of gender and reflects the notion of gender differences in our culture. This is not only due to the books' visible gender markings, but also to the content of the stories. The purpose is to demonstrate the interplay between stability and change in the stories, representation of gender. Literary tradition, didactic tradition, bourgeois culture and contemporary society influence the stories. This study examines the stories published in the series from 1914 to 1944.The terms used in the analysis originate from social psychology, narratology and gender theory. The textual analyses of the stories focus on the narrative progression of the protagonist, the protagonists' development from childhood to adulthood and the presented ideals of femininity and masculinity. One important conclusion is that age and gender affects girls' stories and boys' stories in different ways.The youngest girl protagonists deal with problems concerning the survival of the family. The teenage girls are confronted with ideals of femininity and learn to fully internalise the gender norms. All the girl protagonists are caught up in a heterosexual career, moving towards its fulfilment in motherhood.The boy protagonists step into homosocial spheres and strive for the ideal of the hegemonic masculinity: a grown, white man and a leader of other men and women. The masculine ideal is the adventure man, making his own way. But the dutiful citizen is also seen in recognisable characteristics such as honesty, rationality and loyalty.Both girls' stories and boys' stories respond to the image of the bourgeois family, with different gender performances for men and women.
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- Ehrenberg, Maria
(author)
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Sagans förvandlingar: Eva Wigström som sagosamlare och sagoförfattare
- 2003
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to study how fairy tales can change when they are removed from one set of surroundings to another. This movement can occur on several levels; from an orally spoken to a written text, from a rural proletariat to an urban bourgeoisie. The point of departure has been the fairy tale collector and fairy tale writer Eva Wigström (1832-1901) who in the 1880s wandered throughout the Swedish province of Scania collecting folklore and popular narratives. A part of the material she collected she reused in different ways, and by choosing a couple of the fairy tales that she used many times, differences in content and the manner of presentation can be observed. Four fairy tale types have been central to the investigation. Three of these are so called ”female” tales, which is to say with women as the main characters; ”The Name of the Helper” (AT 500), ”The Three Old Women Helpers” (AT 501) and ”King Lindorm” (AT 433b); one ”male” tale, that is with a man as main character, ”The Wild Man” (AT 502). Gérard Genettes narratolgical method has been used as an aid in analysis as has Walter Ong’s advice on the differences between oral and written tales and Bengt Holbek’s observations on popular storytellers in Denmark during the 19th Century. The fairy tales studied were all published in works intended for researchers. A couple of them were reworked for a philanthropic bourgeoisie magazine, a couple of others were reworked for different children's magazines. Finally, Eva Wigström wrote a couple of tales in which she allowed herself to be loosely inspired by the fairy tales mentioned above and their theme cycle. By working with these texts a wish to abolish the disparity folk tale – authored tale has arisen. A definition is presented which is based on the medium and the culture in which the tale is conveyed. The starting point is the abstract type of fairy tale. This is displayed in the orally spoken fairy tale as well as in the written text. A recording is a documentation, more or less carefully transcribed, of an oral tale. A recording which in language, but not in content, is reworked for publicaton I call a revised tale. If the recording is changed in both language and content I call it a rewritten tale. An writer's tale is finally one which is placed more freely in relation to the oral tradition and which frees itself from the type.
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- Ulfgard, Maria
(author)
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För att bli kvinna - och av lust : en studie i tonårsflickors läsning
- 2002
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- As part of the development of the teaching of literature in school, it is also important to reflect upon what pupils read outside school. This thesis deals with the spare time reading of twenty 15-16-year-old girls which has been examined during a two-year period. Empirical material related to young girls’ reading is examined in a variety of scholarly methods. Young girls’ reading is studied in the light of reception theory; novels are analysed by means of narratology; young girls’ lives are charted from perspectives drawn from cultural sociology and social psychology; finally, all aspects of the empirical material are tested by means of theories derived from gender studies. For the purposes of the thesis the initial question has been broken down into three segments: To what extent the girls actually engage in reading in their spare time, what they read, and what importance they attach to their reading. Another aim, which focusses attention on the connection between the girls’ lives and their reading, has been to find out to what extent the girls’ choice of literature is determined by geographical, social, cultural, and religious factors and by the teaching of literature at school. The third aim has been to find out how gender is constructed in the books that the girls choose to read, how they construct gender while reading these books, and how they construct gender in their own lives. The results of the study suggest that pleasure is a strong factor governing the girls’ reading and that there is a strong connection between the girls’ construction of their identity, including the formation of gender, and their choice of literature and the development of their reading. The study shows that the fiction chosen by the girls themselves mirrors their lives and that the social, cultural and religious factors have an influence on their reading. The relevance of the results of the thesis to the teaching of literature in Swedish schools is discussed. A dialogue is initiated with Läroplanens värdegrund, Lpo 94 and with Kursplan 2000, the Swedish syllabus currently used.
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